


Five Nights

by bitboozy



Series: Domesticated [29]
Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Baby Hardy Bastard Child of Broadchurch, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Gen, Romance, This is a love story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2021-01-04 01:10:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21189059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bitboozy/pseuds/bitboozy
Summary: Five nights in the soon to be sold Miller/Hardy household.





	1. Monday

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Nothing happens in this chapter. Literally nothing.

Ellie lies flat on her back on top of the bed, staring at the ceiling with one arm over her forehead. She’s been this way for quite some time.

When Alec appears in the doorway, he stops, takes one look at her, and smiles.

“Careful, you’re in a very tantalizing position.”

She raises her head, frowning. “Just lying here.”

He steps further into the room and closes the door behind him. “Exactly.” 

As the weeks have gone on, it has in fact been _his _libido that’s grown, while hers has stayed the same. The farther along she gets in her pregnancy, the more attracted to her he seems to become. And this Ellie had _not_ anticipated. 

“I’m just not sure we can afford it,” she tells him with a sigh, dropping her head back again. 

He slips off his shoes and begins pulling off his tie. “My savings is pretty significant. And if we at least get our askin’ price for _this _house, I think we’re in the clear.”

“But with all the other expenses we have coming up?” She covers her face and groans.

He unfastens his belt and yanks his trousers down, stepping out of them. “We’re gettin’ that house, El. Whatever it takes.”

They’ve finally found a house they’ve both fallen in love with. Not too far from the high street, but on its own small plot of land. It has four bedrooms and a finished attic, two and a half baths, a decent sized garden, a kitchen larger than either of them have ever had (with near new appliances at that), and a claw foot tub in the master bathroom which Ellie cares about above all things. She nearly started crying when she saw it.

He climbs onto the bed, unbuttoning his shirt. She props herself up on her elbows and raises both eyebrows at him. “What do you think is happening right now?” She glances down to see that he’s already half-hard. 

“Ellie, I swear to christ, the things you’re doin’ to me…” He growls, moving to straddle her legs.

“Not doing _anything_,” she replies dubiously. “Literally just lying here.”

He divests himself of his shirt. “Your tits looks _fuckin’ _incredible in that top.”

The low cut v-neck maternity shirts have really been getting to him. She always forgets until she’s already put them on. At work he leers at her through his office window and hardly cares who sees. 

“I’m trying to have a serious discussion about our finances.”

“After,” he insists. “Can’t concentrate just now.” He crawls forward, hovering over her, his hand on either side of her arms propping him up. “Need to bury myself in ‘em.”

He’s waiting eagerly for her response, but then she grimaces and pushes him over so he lands on the other side of her just as she hops up.

“Hang on, she’s right on my bladder.” She runs into the loo and he groans into a pillow.

While he waits for her, he turns onto his side and picks up a few of the bank statements she’s been studying. Then she reappears leaning against the door frame.

“Whose idea was it to have a baby at our age?” She complains.

He glances up. “No one’s.”

“Right.”

She walks over to her dresser slowly. She’s not _quite _waddling yet but it’s coming. She stands in front of the mirror and starts taking off her jewelry from the day.

“I’ll be going through bloody menopause by the time she’s out of nursery,” Ellie says.

He doesn’t look up from the paperwork. “Good then we won’t have to worry about birth control anymore.” 

She tries to look at him through the mirror. “Think you’ll still want to fuck me when I’m fifty?”

He looks up, one annoyed eyebrow raised. “_Yes_.”

“Fuck me through my hot flashes?”

He puts the paperwork down. “You’re sayin’ _fuck me_ a lot for someone who is apparently not in the mood.”

She whirls around, leaning back against the dresser. “Who says I’m not in the mood?”

He immediately sits up. “_Are_ you?”

“Hard to say from one minute to the next,” she admits with a shrug. “You try having a baby the size of a banana pressing down on your bladder.”

“Why don’t you try havin’_me_ pressing down on your bladder.” She stares at him. He cringes. “…That didn’t work, did it?”

“No, no it didn’t." 

“Right, sorry.”

Ellie pulls out her makeup remover wipes and begins wiping her face. He looks back down at all the papers again.

“Should call the realtor in the mornin’. Put in an offer,” he says. Then he looks up suddenly. “You know what I keep forgettin’? I’ve got inheritance comin’ in.”

She blinks at him in confusion. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“Greer’s the executor, she was trying to figure out how best to divide up the money,” Alec explains. “But last I heard we might be lookin’ at twenty thousand quid.”

Ellie throws the makeup wipe in the rubbish. “You’re joking.”

Alec pulls out his mobile. “I’ll text her and see where we are.”

She’s not surprised he’s somehow forgotten to mention it. He hardly ever thinks about money and therefore they hardly ever discuss it.

She sits on the edge of the bed. “We should schedule in little chats like this.”

He looks up from his mobile. “Little chats like what?”

“Checking in on our financial status and all that,” she explains. “We’re getting _married_, Alec. Soon we’ll have a baby and we’re about to buy a house and…we never talk about it. It’s a miracle all our bills get paid on time.”

He nods, chewing on the stem of his reading glasses. She finds this unbearably sexy but she tries to sublimate it now that she’s finally gotten him to take this discussion seriously.

“’S’pose we should have a joint checking account?” He asks.

She nods and absently reaches out for his foot, tapping her fingers along the arch of it. “Probably. Should look at merging our credit cards too. We’ll need to file our taxes jointly next year once we’re married.”

He looks over at her, smiling. “Nice, that. ‘Once we’re married.’”

She continues stroking his foot and appears to have no awareness of the fact that she’s doing it. “Do you think it’ll be different? From now?”

“Well, we’ll also have an infant, so yes,” Alec replies.

“That’ll put an end to our honeymoon phase _real_ fast.” She gets up again and goes to the loo to wash her face, keeping the door open.

He sits up and watches her from his place on the bed. “We’ve already seen each other at our absolute worst, El. Christ, I fell in love with you watching you dry heave in the interview room and then kicking the shite out of your husband. Don’t think I’ll have any trouble bein’ in love with you with our child attached to your tits.”

She rubs her face with a towel and leans back to look at him through the doorway. “And people think you’re not a bloody romantic.” She hangs up the towel then comes back into the room. “You might not have any trouble being in love with me but you may not want to fuck me.”

He sighs. “Again with the _fuck me._ Do you want to or not?”

“The idea of a baby hanging off my tits isn’t as sexy to me as it apparently is to you,” Ellie replies. 

Alec’s mobile vibrates. “Then stop saying _fuck me_.” He looks at the screen. “Greer says twenty-_five_ thousand.”

“Blimey.” She goes to her dresser and picks up her moisturizer. “She have any idea when it might come through?”

“Asking now,” he says, typing. Then he looks up. “Have you discussed your maternity leave with Jenkinson yet?”

“Briefly. She offered me up to six months but I’m thinking more like eight weeks,” Ellie answers, applying the moisturizer to her face. “I think that’s about what I did with Fred." 

He puts the mobile down and regards her with mild concern. “That gonna be enough?”

“Well, I don’t rightly know yet, do I?” She applies her eye cream in front of the mirror. “Depends on how the birth goes as well.”

“What do you mean?”

“How difficult it is. If it’s natural or caesarean. Episiotomy or no. If she comes early or late,” Ellie explains. “All of those things can affect how I’ll feel or what she’ll need, things like that. How much time are you going to take?”

“A few weeks at least,” Alec says. “Want her to bond with me like she bonds with you. Also we’ll need to look into our childcare options fairly soon, won’t we?”

“Oh, right.” She hadn’t needed to do that with Fred until after Joe’s arrest. “One thing at a time, eh? House first. Childcare and baby things after. Aren’t you cold?”

He’s been sitting on the bed in only his briefs.

“Been waitin’ on you to come warm me up.”

“I’m warming up a baby, is that not enough?”

He scoots off the bed and goes to her, wrapping his arms around her torso from behind, below her breasts and above her baby bump. His lips immediately go to her neck. She grins and covers his hands with hers.

“See, that’s nice, isn’t it?” He murmurs into her skin after he can sense her smiling. 

“It’s all right,” she says with a smirk he can’t see.

He nudges her hair out of the his way and kisses along the back of her neck to the other side.

“You need to trim your beard.”

He raises his head just a little. “Oh are we talkin’ about things that need to be trimmed?”

She elbows him in the ribs. “Don’t be a cunt.”

He bites into her shoulder once, then lifts her shirt over her head and she lets him. He slips his fingers underneath the underwire of her bra and slides them back and forth. She’s about to speak when suddenly his tongue is in her ear and she gets distracted. He’s getting harder now, she can feel it against her back. He pushes her bra strap off her shoulder and then plunges his hand into her bra and cups her breast.

“God’s sake, just take it off,” she complains.

“I’m doin’ _foreplay_, woman.” He nips at her earlobe and she lets out a little yelp.

“Do a little less fore and a little more play.” She reaches back to grab his arse, pulling him into her.

“Nnng, not sure that made sense but I’ll go with it.” 

He unhooks her bra and peels it off her. He cups both breasts in his hands, feeling the weight of them.

“Say _fuck me_ again,” he whispers in her ear while kneading her breasts.

Ellie takes one of his hands and slides it down, over her stomach and past the waistband of her leggings. “_Fuck me_.”

He rubs his hand over her, then teases her entrance with his fingers. She drops her hand back against his chest and sighs.

“Again.” His thumb passes over her clit.

She reaches back and holds onto his neck. “Fuck me, Detective Inspector.”

His slips one finger inside her and then out again, and pinches her nipple at the same time.

“Ahhhh, can’t stand like this much longer.”

Alec turns them around and begins guiding her back to the bed. She crawls back onto it, then he pulls off her leggings and knickers in one go. He moves to lie beside her and reaches for her cheek, turning her head so he can kiss her.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispers, his hand sliding down to her chest.

When she smiles in response, it’s just for him. It’s the smile she saves for him when they’re at the office, the smile she offers him from across the room at crowded events, the smile her face breaks into whenever she catches him playing Star Wars with Fred. It lights her up from the inside and it’s so bright that he catches some for himself.

“So beautiful,” he repeats, kissing her again, parting her lips with his tongue and sliding it into her mouth slowly.

She tangles her legs with his and rubs their feet together. His arms slip around her, pulling her onto her side and against his chest as he continues to deepen the kiss.

Ellie loves that he’s unexpectedly gone from dirty and randy to romantic and soppy. Sometimes it happens so quickly, he’ll go from one to the other, almost as if he’s just trying to keep her on her toes for sport.

His hand travels down as he kisses her, passing over her breasts to rub her stomach. He covers every inch of it – and there’s a lot more inches to cover these days – and moves it around in circles.

In an effort to breathe, his lips move to her cheek to the top of her jawline just by her ear. “So fuckin’ beautiful,” he whispers again, almost unconsciously. She turns into his shoulder, burying her face in him, and he takes her earlobe into his mouth.

She whispers his name into his shoulder and brings her leg up over his hip. His hand grazes over her arse and travels down the same leg up to the knee, holding her there. He’s fully hard now, pressing against her stomach through his taut briefs. She raises her head so she can look at him again and touches their foreheads together.

“I love you,” he says softly, capturing her lips once more.

She slips him the tongue this time and he moans with pleasure. Her fingers lightly trace his spine, up and down and back again.

A mobile rings nearby. It’s his, they can tell by the ringtone.

“Leave it,” she tells him. 

All three children are at home, so there’s no such thing as a true emergency for them right now.

It doesn’t take much persuasion. He leaves it, and keeps right on kissing her. She reaches down and begins stroking him through the fabric of his briefs. It’s not the easiest for her to reach in her current state, but she manages it, circling the tip of him with her index finger. He bites her bottom lip and growls. She gasps and for a second she thinks he’s drawn blood but he hasn’t. His own hand now starts to slide down her stomach with designs on moving lower when he feels a little jolt.

He freezes. He pulls his lips from hers and looks at her. There’s another small jolt and a smile begins to spread across Ellie’s face. 

Alec blinks at her. “Is that – “

She nods. “That’s her.”

They quickly reposition themselves so that Ellie is lying flat on her back and Alec is sitting on his knees next to her protruding belly, both hands laying on her in anticipation.

There’s another jolt and Alec lets out a totally joyous laugh when he feels it. She grins up at him.

“That’s her,” he repeats, fully in awe. He moves his hands around, then it happens again, a little higher up than before. “There she is.”

“She’s awfully restless all of a sudden.” Ellie props herself up on her elbows to look down. “Ooh.” She reaches for one of his hands and moves it lower. “She’s twisting about, feel.” 

“My god.” When he looks at her, it’s with tears in his eyes.

Ellie herself flinches a bit at the next one. “That was a bloody _punch_.”

“It’s incredible.” Alec lays down next to her again, on his side, keeping one hand on her stomach. “Incredible.” He kisses her smiling lips. “You’re amazin’.”

Ellie scoffs. “She’s the one doing the Olympic warm ups.”

He strokes her hair and kisses her again. “You’re the one makin’ it all possible.” Another jolt. “See, she agrees. That was a ‘thank you, Mummy.’”

She laughs. “That was an ‘I need a bigger room, Mummy.’”

He smiles, then begins planting kisses on her shoulder and her chest. He feels another little something, but not quite a jolt. He looks up at her. 

“Just did a little somersault,” Ellie explains with a chuckle, grinning at him.

“My heart, too.” He kisses all over her chest while she runs her fingers through his hair. He moves down to her breasts, taking one in his mouth, licking and sucking at her nipple, thinking about how in just over three months, he won’t be the _only_ one doing this to her. “Goin’ to have to fight her for these,” he murmurs.

“Please, I’ll be so sore I’ll barely let you near them,” she replies.

He raises his head immediately and appears stricken. She laughs. “Well, you’ll have to be much gentler, at least.”

“Gentler than this?” He begins sucking a mark into the underside of her breast. She gasps with unbridled delight. Then he looks up at her again with puppy dog eyes.

“Yes,” she says. “Gentler than that.” 

“Come here.” Alec turns her onto her side to face him, then quickly removes his briefs. He grabs her leg and positions it back over his hip. Then he brings his hand to her neck and kisses her. “All right? You comfortable?”

She nods and raises her hips. He guides himself inside her.

The baby kicks.

They both grin against each other’s lips.

“Close your ears, Baby Girl,” Alec says, then goes back to kissing Ellie.

She holds onto his neck and shoulders as he begins to thrust into her slowly. They focus on each other, gazes locked as they move together, hands roaming bodies.

“Love you,” Ellie mumbles, kissing his neck.

After a few moments of gentle movement, he says, “You know I’m not goin’ to last long, yeah? I’ve been hard for you for the last bloody hour.”

“’S all right,” she replies into his chest, sinking her teeth into his clavicle. She likes that phrase. _Hard for you_. She reaches for his arse and squeezes it, encouraging him to start thrusting faster. 

He has to hold her tight against him, her belly always threatening to get in the way and separate them. Her foot locks in the leg she has around his hip. He’s starting to breathe more and more heavily, faint whimpers sneaking out of him every so often. Each whimper out of him arouses Ellie more and she draws him in to kiss him fervently. She seems to be right with him, even though he hasn’t yet reached down to touch her.

“Are you – “ He pants. “Do you need – “

She’s nodding but he’s not sure to what. “I think, I think I can – oh god, Alec.” She grabs his arse tighter and he pushes in a little deeper, as much as he can in this position.

He’s close and they can both feel it. “Ellie.”

She nods again and presses her lips to his once. “If you just – I think if you just quickly…” She finds his hand and brings it to her clit. “Fuck fuck.”

“Come on, baby,” he pleads into her mouth, his thumb rubbing her clit.

Those words seem to shatter her. As soon as he feels her start to come, he lets himself go as well. It’s quiet but _gorgeous_, rolling through both of them in waves as they coax each other through it, eyes closed, foreheads touching. When the release finally ends, he pulls out of her and they both turn to lie on their backs, slowly their breath. He reaches for her hand between them and tangles their fingers.

She turns her head to look at him. “So we need to call the realtor in the morning. Put in an offer.” 

He looks back at her. “I’ll call first thing.”

“I love you." 

“I love you too.”

The baby kicks.

**


	2. Wednesday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More nothing!

It does not happen enough that the entire family is seated at the dining room table outside of their all too brief meals together. But tonight, though they all finished eating their Thai food takeaway over an hour ago, they all remain in their seats. Plates have been cleared and replaced by various papers. Daisy is deep into reading for an exam, Tom has his laptop out and is working on the social media pages for the _Broadchurch Echo_, and Alec and Ellie have what feels like a mountain of paperwork to parse through and sign before the house on Grosvenor Lane officially belongs to them.

And Fred is asleep in Ellie’s lap, facing her with his legs straddling either side of her stomach, his body draped over it, face in her breasts. They all think he must be too old to be falling asleep on her as much as he is, but school has clearly been wearing him out, and taking naps out of his afternoon schedule seems to have done him in.

“S’pose you know you’re in a true committed relationship when there’s suddenly endless paperwork,” Alec says, signing at the bottom of one page.

Ellie does not dignify him with even a look. “Yes, that’s what it is.”

Tom glances up from his laptop. “I want the bedroom all the way in the back, the one with the front-facing window.”

“Thought we’d established that already,” Ellie replies.

“Yeah I’m just making sure.”

“Tom has the far bedroom, Fred next to the loo, the baby next to our room, and Daiz in the attic,” Alec confirms. 

Daisy highlights a passage in her textbook. “I’ll be like Rochester’s wife in _Jane Eyre_.”

“Rotten luck with us three still have to share a loo though,” Tom comments.

“Four,” Daisy reminds him. “But I’ll be off at uni soon enough, so only on holidays and such. Some holidays. When I’m not with Mum.”

Alec’s face falls and he keeps his head down so as not to show it. Ellie reaches over and touches his hand.

“You’d rather be with us though, right?” Tom asks. 

“Obviously,” Daisy retorts. “But Mum will guilt me plenty I’m sure. ‘Least I’ll have the baby as an excuse. If I’m gone too much she’ll forget who I am!”

Fred stirs and turns his head to the other side. Ellie gently rubs his back.

“Remember to have your rooms good and tidy tomorrow,” she tells the two teenagers. “We have people coming to look at the house in the afternoon.” 

Alec hands a few pages of the document over to Ellie for her to sign next. They’ve signed plenty of paperwork together over the years at work, but this feels different. She smiles at him with a bit of glee.

“You’re stuck with me now,” she says.

He reaches for her left hand and touches her engagement ring. “Been stuck with you for awhile now.” He tangles their fingers together.

“Don’t be weird at the table,” Tom complains, keeping his eyes on the laptop.

“Get off with you, we’re just holding hands,” Ellie complains back. “You and everyone at this table knows we could do a lot worse if we wanted to so don’t test us.”

The baby kicks and Fred flinches. He groans and snuggles himself even more closely to Ellie.

“Did the baby just kick?” Daisy asks, looking up.

Tom looks up too, though he’s clearly trying to appear uninterested. Ellie nods. 

“She’s going to be a gymnast.”

Daisy’s eyes are wide. “Dad, did you see that?”

“Been happening for a few days now,” Ellie explains. “Your dad’s been all over me since.”

Tom rolls his eyes. “All over you anyway,” he grumbles.

Fred sticks his hand into Ellie’s shirt and sleepily grasps at her breast. Tom grimaces.

“Why do you let him do that?" 

“What?” She looks down. “Dunno, it brings him comfort. _You _used to.” 

“No I didn’t,” Tom insists, a look of pure disgust on his face.

“You did, you fell asleep with your little hand in my bra until you were four,” Ellie tells him.

“You’re lying.”

Daisy starts giggling.

“Children who were nursed are very attached to their mothers this way, long after they stop nursing. It’s purely a comfort thing. Fred’ll tire of it soon enough,” she says. Fred pinches her. “Ow.” 

“I didn’t nurse,” Daisy announces. “Right, Dad?”

Alec nods solemnly. “’s right.”

The baby kicks again. Fred groans and lifts his head, eyes half open. “Whazzat?”

“That’s the baby, love,” Ellie tells him. “She’s just letting you know she’s there.”

Fred blinks at her and scratches his head. “Baby in there?” He pokes her stomach and she grimaces. 

“She’s big enough now that we can start to feel her,” Alec tries to explain. “She’s got wee hands and feet now.”

Fred does not seem pleased about this development. He frowns and lets out an irritated moan before burying his face in Ellie’s breasts again.

“It’s all right, my love,” Ellie coos. “It’s hard to understand.” She rubs his back again soothingly. “You ready for bed then?”

He nods against her chest.

“All right then.”

She grabs hold of him and tries to stand. Alec helps her up.

“Say goodnight to everyone, Fred.”

“Night,” he mumbles.

“Night, Fred,” they all call back to him.

Ellie carries him out of the room.

They all go back to their respective tasks, quietly forging ahead. Once Alec has signed every paper in front of him, he pulls out his mobile and scrolls through a few emails.

Tom looks up. “How soon will we move into the new house?”

“Early as next week, I reckon,” Alec replies. “Hopefully we’ll get a buyer over here this week and then we can start packin’."

Tom returns his attention to his laptop. Then Daisy looks up. “Dad, can we do another driving lesson this week?”

Alec closes his eyes and sighs. “If you like.”

“Want to have my license by the time the baby comes,” she says. “So I can make myself useful.”

He raises an eyebrow. “So you can escape the house whenever you want.”

“…I didn’t say it, you did.”

She looks back down at her textbook. Alec is reminded of something and picks up his mobile again to compose a text message to Tess. As he’s typing, a call comes through. He reluctantly answers it.

“What. You sure? Have you cross-referenced the --- yeah. Yeah, all right. Hold off ‘til one of us gets there.” He hangs up.

With a heavy sigh, he gets up from the table and heads upstairs. He finds Ellie in Fred’s room, sitting on the edge of his bed trying to get a very floppy boy into his pyjamas and clearly growing more frustrated by the second. Alec leans on the doorframe.

“Harford just rang in,” he tells her. “They’ve got a lead on the Bell case. They’re sending out the uniform to bring him in, one of us needs to go in and interview him. Do you want to take this or shall I?”

“Oh, can I?” Ellie drops Fred’s pyjamas on the bed. “I only have so many of these left in me for the time being.”

Alec nods. He offers her his hand to help her up, then takes her place on the edge of the bed.

“Goodnight, sweet boy.” She kisses the top of Fred’s head, then looks at Alec again. “Text you in a while.”

“Good luck.”

Alec does not love letting her go into work without him in her condition. But he knows well that should he even try to stop her, it’ll be his funeral.

He gently grabs a twirling Fred by the shoulders. “Pyjamas, lad. Now.” 

*

Downstairs in the dining room, Daisy is looking at Tom curiously. Tom looks up, annoyed. 

“What.”

“What was your mum like when she had Fred?” Daisy asks.

Tom furrows his brows in confusion. “What d’you mean?”

“Like was she one of those frazzled mums with two different shoes on and peanut butter in her hair?”

“Oh. No.” Tom thinks back. “Not really. Mum’s not really the…frazzled _type_. She gets cranky and stuff, but I don’t remember her being like, a mess or anything.”

“We should probably help out,” Daisy says. “With Fred. Keep him out of her hair for a bit after the baby comes.”

Tom shakes his head skeptically. “Dunno if Fred will let us. When he wants her, he wants her and he doesn’t take no for an answer.”

“Should try though.”

“Yeah.”

Daisy bites her pen cap. “Think he’ll be jealous?”

“What, of the baby?”

She nods.

“Dunno. Maybe. He’s used to being the baby himself,” Tom answers. “And he got so attached to Mum after our dad…you know.”

“Will _you_ be jealous?”

“No.” He immediately looks away from her. “You?”

She looks down at her textbook. “No.”

*

Ellie returns home around 10:30. For Pregnant Ellie, this is a late night. It’s hard for her to remember that in the not so distant past, coming home at 10:30 would have been fairly run of the mill.

She finds Alec in the kitchen, drying the last of the dishes from dinner.

“Hey.” He looks up, attempting to conceal how relieved he is that she’s home. And home so early. “What’s the good word?”

“Not our guy.” She collapses onto a chair. Alec pushes another chair close enough so she can put her feet up. “We let him go. Katie is still convinced he’s the one so I reckon she’ll be up all night trying to prove me wrong. But there wasn’t nearly enough evidence to keep him overnight.” 

He nods. “Tea?” 

“Herbal.”

He switches on the kettle. “She’d sounded so certain.”

“She’s a hard worker but sometimes I question her instincts,” Ellie says. “Suspect was good and sexist though! Kept insisting to be interviewed by a ‘real detective.’ Apparently one cannot be pregnant and a detective at the same time, wish someone had told _me_.”

He smirks. “Bet you put him in his place.”

“Oh, and then some.”

“Mm.” He folds his arms across his chest and leans against the counter. The idea clearly turns him on. “Been a long time since we played – “

“_Alec_.” But she giggles.

“I’m only sayin’.” He wriggles his eyebrows at her. “You can interview me any night of the week.”

The kettle whistles and he reluctantly tends to it.

“You’d only crack under the pressure,” Ellie quips. “Give in to my demands immediately.”

“Well.” He hands her the mug. “You’re very persuasive.”

“Mm.” She blows on it, then takes a sip. “Amazing what I can accomplish when I take my top off.” 

“If only it wasn’t frowned upon in the workplace.”

She holds a hand out to him and he pulls her up out of the chair. Then she wraps her arms around him, her head against his chest, ear to his heart. He reciprocates, holding her tightly.

“All right, love?” He asks, leaving a kiss in her hair.

She sighs contentedly. “Sometimes I just need to be held by you in the middle of the kitchen at 10:30 at night.”

“Happy to oblige.” He unconsciously begins to rock them back and forth just a little.

“You feel so good,” Ellie murmurs into his shirt.

“Mm-hmm.”

It’s quite nice. He clearly does not spend enough time holding her in the middle of the kitchen at 10:30 at night. It’s a gorgeous thing, just to hold her for no reason. Or perhaps, for every reason.

She raises her head to look at him with a lazy, tired smile and slides her arms up, clasping her hands at the back of his neck. She guides his forehead down to hers and touches them together.

“You really _are_ tired,” he remarks. She’s rarely quite so mellow as this, not even late at night. Usually he has to seduce her into it, slow her down, steady her racing thoughts. Like he’s trying to break a horse. 

Ellie nods. She can’t even fight him on _that_. He kisses her ear, then her temple, and finally her cheek, and then stays there, closing his eyes. He feels her trying to get closer to him, but she can’t. There’s an interloper between them the size of a banana, apparently. She buries her head between his neck and shoulder, grasping at his shirt, trying to pull him closer and failing. To his utter amazement, he feels a hot tear on his skin.

“El.”

He tries to pull back so he can look at her but she won’t let him. And she’s just as strong as he is.

“I love her so much, but she just…she keeps getting in the way,” she says into his shoulder, voice breaking. “I want more of you.”

“You have all of me,” Alec assures her, frowning with concern.

This is not her thing. This is _his_ thing. Wanting to feel her, to touch every part of her, to crawl inside of her skin and stay there.

“I don’t _fit_,” she sobs. “We don’t fit like we used to.”

“_Ellie_.” He lifts her head now and turns her face up to him. “What’s the matter, love?”

“Dunno.” She sniffles. “I’m pregnant and emotional and I just want to be held by you.”

She hides her face in his chest again. He rubs her back for a moment, then slides his hands under her top and rubs it skin to skin. He feels her arms tighten around his waist.

“D’you want to go upstairs?” He asks softly.

He’s not sure what she needs. And this is an unusual, uncomfortable feeling for him. He prides himself on almost always knowing what she needs. He’ll do whatever she wants. He’ll hold her however she wants, he’ll do it all night. He’ll give her a massage and kiss every inch of her body, multiple times over. He’ll bury his face between her legs and make her come until she begs him to stop. He’ll put on _Midsummer Murders_ and stroke her hair until she falls asleep. Or he’ll do all of those things. 

“I don’t _know_,” she replies, and he can hear the desperate, bewildered honesty in her voice. It really _must _be the hormones. “I’m fine, I swear, I just love you so much.” 

He laughs, but tries to do it quietly. That’s hormones if he’s ever heard them.

“Come on, my love.” He lifts her head again and kisses the salty moisture under her eyes. “Upstairs. I’ll draw you a bath, eh?”

She nods feebly. “Will you get in with me?” 

He smiles. “If you like.”

“Give me a screaming orgasm that will echo through the walls?”

He lets out a guffaw. There she is. She’s back.

“It would be my honor, lass.”

Ellie grabs his face in her hands and kisses him fiercely. Then grins. “My man.”

He puts an arm around her shoulders and leads her out of the kitchen, planting a kiss on her temple.

In reality, she falls asleep before he can make good on his promise. Before the bathtub is even half full. He takes off her clothes and tucks her under the covers, and she doesn’t wake. When he gets into bed beside her, he pulls her close and she all but melts into him.

She does, indeed, fit. 

**


	3. Thursday

2:47 AM.

Every time Ellie glances at the alarm clock on her bedside table it feels like it an hour has gone by since the last time she’s looked.

She closes her eyes, takes a few deep breaths, and tries to concentrate on the things that normally help her fall asleep. The quiet. The feel of her memory foam pillow. Alec’s arm draped over her. The sound of his measured breathing.

But nothing.

The baby shifts around inside her and she shifts around as well, turning to look at the man fast asleep beside her. It’s a beautiful thing to watch him sleep, truth be told, knowing how many years sleep had largely eluded him before he started sleeping with _her_. Now he sleeps deeply and easily beside her, invariably with some part of his body touching some part of hers, completely still for the majority of the night. Ellie is more a thrasher, or so he calls her. In sleep, her body is restless somehow, she fidgets and twists and steals the duvet. His arms might still her for a while, but eventually her feet will starting fighting with his, though his do not fight back.

Ellie touches his cheek and smiles. She briefly forgets she has a motive for needing to wake him up, but then it needles her and shoots through her entire body.

She begins tracing the lines of his face. Index finger moving along his eyebrows, down the bridge of his nose. “Alec,” she whispers. She traces his lips, several times in fact, then travels down to his chin and runs her fingers up and down the line of his jaw. “Alec…”

He’s dead to the world.

She runs her fingers through his hair and kisses his eyelids. He begins to squirm, but doesn’t fully wake. “Alec.” Her feet confront his underneath the sheets.

Still, nothing. She sighs heavily. “Hardy!” She grabs his hand and places it on her breast. It’s not fair play, but she’s desperate.

His eyes flutter open. He groans. “Wha.” He then registers his hand on her breast and lets out a different kind of groan, unconsciously shifting his body closer to hers. “Mmm.” He rubs his thumb back and forth over her nipple. 

“Sorry to wake you, love,” she whispers.

“Mm-hmm.” He grasps at her breast sleepily, much in the way Fred still does when he’s tired.

“I have a wild craving for that egg thing you do.”

It takes him a second to register the _egg_ in that sentence for his mind has already gone to a naughtier place.

He blinks. “Egg thing.” 

She nods enthusiastically. “The scramble thing with the cheese and the vegetables.” It’s one of the few dishes where she willingly and even happily consumes greens. “And all those spices.”

Alec frowns. “Ellie.”

“That and gherkins.”

“Gherkins.”

“Those I can get myself, but the egg thing, the egg thing I need you for.” She touches his cheek entreatingly. “Please.”

He tries to look over her at the alarm clock. “Time is it?”

“Nearly three.”

He groans loudly and buries his face in her shoulder. “_El_.”

She strokes his hair. “Don’t make me guilt you into it. I _am_ growing an entire human inside me after all.”

“Have to be up in less than four hours,” he grumbles.

She pulls at his hair, forcing him to raise his head and look at her. “Entire human. Growing inside me.”

“Fine.”

She smiles triumphantly and runs her hand up and down his back. “I’ll make it worth your while.” Then slides it down his thigh. “After.”

He immediately pulls away from her with a scowl. “Don’t touch me like that and then say _after_. My god, woman.”

Alec throws the covers off and gets out of bed. She does the same on her own side, but it takes her a lot longer.

In the kitchen, Ellie sits at the table with a childlike anticipation. It brings her an immense and sprawling joy to watch him putz around the kitchen in his boxers and The Kinks t-shirt. It’s the same one she had stolen from him a few months ago and they’d agree it looked better on her. But it no longer fits her, so fair play to him.

He cracks a few eggs into a bowl

“Oh what a beautiful sound!” Ellie clasps her hands together.

Alec yawns, picking up the whisk.

“I was up for _hours _thinking about this, I tried to ignore it, I tried to let it pass, I really _didn’t want to wake you_, but…”

He looks back at her unamused and she grins back sheepishly.

“If it makes you feel any better, when I was pregnant with Tom, I once woke Joe up at four in the morning and made him drive all the way to Weymouth for a scotch egg.”

It does _not_ make him feel better, however, because he has a feeling a similar scenario is somewhere in his not too distant future.

She painstakingly pushes herself up from the chair and goes to the fridge to pull out a jar of gherkins. She takes it with her back to the table and sits back down. Alec watches her pop one into her mouth whole and he can’t help but smile, just a little, before turning back to his work.

“Have you slept at _all_ tonight?” He asks her, finally.

“Nope.” She bites into another gherkin. 

He shakes his head. “Should have woken me earlier.” He begins chopping up vegetables. “Could have done this sooner and you could’ve slept at least a little. And you know there are things I can do to help.”

“Like what?” She pops the other half of the gherkin into her mouth. “I can’t take anything.”

He turns around and simply raises an eyebrow at her.

“_Oh_.”

“_Oh_, she says. Oh.” He turns back to the counter. “Just like you have your little ways of calmin’ _me_ down, I’ve got mine too. You’re a restless little thing, Ellie Miller.”

“So all these nights I’ve thought you were just suddenly randy in the middle of the night, you’ve just been trying to knock me out?” Ellie asks with a laugh.

“To _still _you, yes,” he replies. “You become quite docile in your post-coital glow.”

She flashes him a wicked grin and licks a few of her fingers. “Oh, you are a tricky man, Alec Hardy. Tricky, tricky.”

He throws the vegetables into a pan coated with olive oil and starts to sauté them.

“Come kiss me.”

He turns around, wooden spoon in hand. “Do you want me to kiss you or cook for you?” 

“I want it all.”

He takes the few steps over to her and leans down to kiss her lips. Then grimaces. “Sour.”

“What, you don’t like for me to taste like gherkin?”

He kisses her again. “Not so bad the second time.”

“Now give it a third.” She grabs the collar of his shirt, yanks him down, and kisses the hell out of him.

He stands up, breathless, and licks his lips. “Can’t complain.” He smirks at her, then returns to the sautéing vegetables.

She bites into another gherkin. “Was thinking we should schedule the baby shower.”

“Kay.” Alec yawns again.

“Sometime next month I reckon. Once we’re settled in the new house.”

“Isn’t someone supposed to _throw_ you a baby shower?” He asks, pouring the egg mix into the pan.

She shrugs. “I’ll get Beth and Lucy to do it. But not throw _me_. I think it should be an equal opportunity affair. The baby is not just _mine_ after all.”

He glances back at her uncertainly. “You want me to _be _there?" 

“It’s your baby too!” Ellie replies matter-of-factly. “We’re a modern couple. Hip, unmarried parents.” He rolls his eyes openly at her. “We’re _nontraditional_.” 

“Fine, whatever you like.” He opens the fridge and pulls out a packet of shredded cheese.

“I think everyone should be there. Not just you, but all of the kids too,” she explains. “I don’t need it to be a celebration of me, it’s a celebration of…change, of what’s next. The evolution of our little family. _Big_ family, I suppose. Four children is nothing to sneeze at.” Then she suddenly snorts with laughter. “Did you ever think you’d have _four children_?”

“Christ, no.” He pulls a plate out of the cupboard.

“DI Dad over here.”

“Watch it.”

Alec spoons the eggs onto a plate and then sets it down in front of her.

“Oh, you’re gorgeous!” She exclaims. “Thank you.”

He sits down beside her and she props her feet up on his lap as she digs in. He scoffs suddenly and shakes his head.

“DI Dad.”

She smiles at him with her mouth full, quite pleased with herself.

“We’ll get you a minivan and some Dad shorts.”

He gets a bite of what’s on her plate and shakes his head again. “Cruel.”

“I like the image of you in your office, the baby in a carrier on the couch, just watching you with her big brown eyes. Which she undoubtedy will have,” Ellie says, leaning back in the chair and swallowing another forkful of eggs. “You briefing the team in the morning with a baby on your hip. Every time you open your mouth she tries to stick her fingers in it.” 

It takes him a minute to respond. The thought of these images of unexpectedly moving to him, especially in his weakened and exhausted state. It’s emotional enough to him, the idea of Ellie being pregnant. But then he remembers that in a short time they will actually have a _baby_.

He tries to shake it off. “And where are _you_ in these scenarios?”

She shrugs. “Dunno, probably pumping breast milk in the loo or something else vaguely unattractive,” she replies. “Tom used to do that all the time as a baby. Anytime he could stick his fingers in my mouth, he found a way. It took serious concentration not to bite him accidentally. Especially me being twenty-eight and clueless.”

“Twenty-eight isn’t that young.” 

“Any age you have your first child is a young age,” she retorts, mildly insulted. “Knob.”

“Fair enough.”

“Never felt so bewildered and lost in my life.” She takes another bite. 

Alec nods and starts massaging her feet and ankles, still stuck on the images of their future baby. Well, current baby. In the future.

She tries to catch his eye. “Okay?”

He rubs his eye. “It’s three in the morning.”

“Uh huh…” She doesn’t look away. “You’re thinking about something.”

Alec focuses his energies on massaging her, keeping his head down.

Ellie raises an eyebrow now. “You’re cranky with me, but still trying to make me feel good.” _That is so like him_, she thinks. _Wanker._

He finally glances up at her, just barely frowning. “You want me to stop?”

“I want you to tell me why you’re cranky.”

“’m not cranky,” he insists. “It’s the middle of the night.” He presses his thumb into the arch of her foot.

She takes another bite, observing him studiously all the while.

“Stop it,” he grumbles.

“It’s the baby at work thing, isn’t it?” She taps her fork lightly against her lips contemplatively. “Having a baby at home is all well and good, but _other_ people seeing you with the baby…”

“Leave it alone, Ellie.”

She narrows her eyes at him suspiciously. He so rarely gets like this with her when they’re at home.

“I’m right, aren’t I?”

He scowls at her full-on now, then starts pressing down on each one of her toes. This is how she knows he’s not actually cross with her. Annoyed at her, perhaps, but the fact that he can scowl at her while refusing to take his hands off her is telling. 

“If you’re that upset, then let me go,” she challenges him.

He stops rubbing her feet, but still holds onto them, staring down. She nods, vindicated.

“So what then?”

He clears his throat, but even after it takes him at least twenty more seconds to speak. “It’s…it’ll be strange. To let other people see me that way.”

She smiles, but only because he’s not looking at her and can’t see it. She was right.

“It’s what _you_ get from me, what the family gets from me. I get to, you know…”

“Be yourself,” she says.

“Yeah.” He finally lifts his head. “But it’s _ours_, it’s for us, it’s not _for _anyone else.”

She reaches out to touch his shoulder. “It’s just who you are, love. I know it’s easier to keep it to yourself, but it won’t hurt you for other people to see it. You might even like it. Feel relieved.”

“Doubt it.”

“After the baby comes, people at work are going to meet a slightly different Alec Hardy. One who bounces a baby in his arms and knows how to soothe her and feed her, who holds a baby against his chest while he scrolls through CCTV,” Ellie says, and is briefly entranced by the idea and the way it creates a fuzzy warm feeling inside her. “They’ll also meet a slightly different Ellie Miller. One who is exhausted and snappish and wildly distracted, who is frequently leaking and forgetting where she put things. Things are going to change. You and I are going to change, just a little bit. Or maybe a lot, who’s to say. But I swear to you, Alec, I _swear_ you will_ not_ notice it a bit. You’re self-conscious thinking about it now, but when it’s happening? The only thing you’re going to feel is how in love you are with this little girl. And you won’t care who sees it.”

Alec turns his head and looks over at her, nodding slowly. Then his face slowly breaks into a smile. “We’re goin’ to have a baby soon.” 

The same smile creeps over her own face. “We really are.” 

“…Bit weird." 

“_Extremely_ weird.” 

He reaches for the legs of her chair and pulls it close to his with one swift motion. She relaxes her legs over his lap, feet dangling.

“I can’t bloody wait,” he says, full on grinning now. Then he leans forward to kiss her. “Still taste like gherkin, how is that possible?”

She’s exhausted but her eyes are sparkling. “Feed me some chocolate and I’ll taste like that instead.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Oh, now you want chocolate?”

She nods with a guilty, helpless grin.

He leans his body forward and lays his head on her stomach. She strokes his hair. 

“We’re having a baby soon,” he says again.

She lets him lay like that for a few minutes, one hand in his hair and the other hand running up and down his back. Then she says, “All right then, back upstairs with you. You can do that thing you _apparently _do where you get me off to just to put me to sleep.”

He lifts his head to look at her. “Sometimes just to shut you up.”

She snorts, covering her mouth to keep her laughter quiet. 

He pushes his chair back and stands, then picks up her plate and moves it to the sink. “You want tongue or fingers?” He holds a hand out to her.

“Such a bloody _romantic._” She takes it and lets him help her up. “Is it greedy if I say both?”

“It’s 3am, let’s see if I can get it done with just the tongue,” he decides. “Maybe I can beat my own record.”

Her eyes widen as she looks up at him. “Beg your pardon?”

“Sometimes I take bets with myself on how quickly I can get you off. Just to practice my skills,” Alec says with a smirk, though he is deadly serious. “It’s an _art_ and art requires constant practice.” 

She places her hands on her hips. “And what’s your record?”

“Well. It depends on how randy you are when I start,” he explains methodically. “Three minutes.”

“You’re lying!”

“I’m not,” Alec says smugly. “Three minutes. Granted it was your second orgasm of the night and it was during your Insatiable Ellie phase, but still it’s a badge of honor I wear with pride.”

“You’re a smug little wanker, aren’t you?” But she reaches for his hand. “Come on then. Practice your bloody art. Just try not to wake the baby up.”

*


	4. Friday

Ellie stands at the dining room table, staring at the half empty box on top of it. She leans forward, palms pressed to the table, head hanging.

Alec strides in carrying a sealed up box and places it on the floor.

“Ah, come on now,” he says when he sees her. “What’s the trouble this time?”

He comes up behind her and starts rubbing her shoulders.

“Can’t we just hire people do this for us?” She whines, without raising her head.

“Why would we hire people do something we can do ourselves?” He replies.

“For _convenience_, Alec, for bloody _convenience_.” She raises her head and turns so she can glare at him. “Whose genius idea was it for us to move house while I’m six months bloody pregnant?!”

Alec pulls out a chair for her and guides her into it. “Better than nine months, eh?”

She fixes him with another icy glare. He moves behind her chair and keeps massaging her shoulders.

“We’ve got the whole of Broadchurch comin’ over to help us tomorrow, we’ll be fine,” he assures her.

She throws her head back and sighs dramatically. “All I want to do these days is be in bed.”

“And soon you can be in bed in our giant new master bedroom with massive closets and a window seat.”

Ellie lifts her head. “The bed is the first thing we get settled in the new house. The _very_ first thing.”

Alec leans down and kisses her cheek. Then kisses it again and again until she finally smiles. “We’ll have a whole new room to shag in,” he says. “Think of the possibilities.”

“Mm.” Her eyes glaze over at she imagines it. “Bigger room means more _wall_.”

He chuckles. She is certainly consistent about her love for being fucked up against a wall. He kisses her cheek again. “Bigger loo. _Two _sinks. Giant clawfoot tub. We’ll never have to leave the bedroom.”

“Sounds all right to me.”

He starts massaging her neck. She tilts her head back a bit and closes her eyes. “I was thinkin’ we should get one of those little sound machines for the bedroom,” he tells her. “Like the ones you put in a child’s room to keep then noise out while they sleep. We should get one of our own, don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner.”

“What for?” He tips his head down to look at her. She opens her eyes. “_Oh_. That _is_ a good idea. The kids will certainly thank us.”

“Especially since we won’t be in the attic anymore.”

“We should get one for every room,” Ellie says with a laugh. “Then we can be as loud as we want.”

“Appealin’.” He leans forward again and nips at her ear. She grins. He takes this as encouragement and runs his tongue along the edge of it. “Tonight might be our last chance to shag in this house. Be too exhausted tomorrow, I reckon.” He kisses her cheek, then her jaw, the side of her mouth.

She keeps her eyes closed, a lazy smile on her face, and just enjoys being kissed. “You know what I forgot to tell you?” He kisses his way back to her ear. “Did the math the other day. Think I figured out which time it was that the baby was conceived.” 

“Oh yeah?” He kisses her lips from above her and is reminded of _Spider-Man_. He feels very hip just to have thought of it.

Head still hanging back, she tilts it to the left. “Time in the loo there. Remember? When we couldn’t make it upstairs. You fucked me on top of the sink and then Tom came knocking on the door complaining about no crisps or something.”

He kisses the space between her eyebrows. “You bit my hand and drew blood when I was tryin’ to quiet you.”

“Yep.”

“That’s when the baby was conceived?” He asks incredulously as she turns around in the chair to face him properly.

“Pretty certain,” she replies. “I’d been in court that day so I was able to look up the date.”

“Couldn’t have lasted more than five minutes.”

Ellie reaches out and absently fingers the buttons on his shirt. “All it takes.”

“Thought it might’ve been that time in the bathtub.”

Her eyes widen. “Oh my god, what a disaster that was. Water everywhere.”

“Least it lasted more than five minutes,” he scoffs. He’s playing with her hair now, combing back flyaway strands with his fingers. “Can’t believe we conceived a bloody child on top of a sink.”

“Almost impressive, isn’t it?” She unfastens a button halfway down his shirt slips a few fingers inside to touch him. “When you think about it, though, it’s exactly the kind of thing that _would_ happen to us.”

He snorts, but is now mildly distracted by her hand playing with his chest hair.

A sly grin spreads across her face. “We made a baby in a bathroom.”

Just the phrase _we made a baby_ sends a chill down his spine. “Wanna go, uh. Make another one?”

She laughs loudly and unfastens another button. “Don’t think that’s how it works, love.”

“Well, we can try.”

She slides her hand all the way into his shirt and stands up. “Know what I think I’d quite like to do?”

He’s staring down at her hand. “What.”

“Go snog on the couch for a while,” she says. “Haven’t done that in a bit.”

“Bloody kids always bloody everywhere,” he growls, then pulls her hand out of his shirt and uses it to drag her across the room.

She pushes him down onto the couch and, with his help, sits on his lap and straddles him.

“Ah, the interloper,” he says as his hands go to her stomach, which is creating more of a distance between them than he’d like.

“Can’t escape her."

He runs his hands all over her now quite sizeable baby bump, then slips his hands underneath her top and does it again. She leans forward and kisses him, softly at first, then more insistently. She brings her hands to his cheeks and feels his beard. She smiles against his lips then pulls back just the littlest bit to look at him. 

“I love your stupid, adorable face so much.”

He frowns and it only makes him more endearing to her. “Stupid, adorable, _sexy_ face,” he corrects her.

She pets his cheeks like a cat. “Very sexy, yes.” 

She kisses him again, with enough force this time to press him further back into the couch. As she leans up and forward into him, his hands slide down to cup her arse. 

“Stupid…stupid face,” she says between kisses, voice dripping with affection, so he can’t even complain.

As their tongues mingle together, the baby suddenly kicks. It startles Ellie so much that she pulls back with an “oh!”

They both look down at her stomach, grinning.

“Well, hello there, wee lass,” Alec says. The baby kicks again. “Doesn’t like to be left out, this one.”

“Well she can’t be a part of _this_,” Ellie notes with a stern face.

“No…” He unbuttons the top few buttons of her shirt. “This is only for Mummy,” he says, pressing his mouth to her chest. 

The baby kicks.

“You just keep on kickin’,” he says, continuing to press open-mouthed kisses into Ellie’s chest. “We’ll not pay any attention to your little tantrum.”

She tangles her fingers in his hair and simply smiles as he sucks at her skin. She feels positively blissful in the moment – the feel of his lips on her, the scratchiness of his beard tickling her, the way he talks to the baby. This very simple – and not unusual – little moment is perfectly indicative of the life she’s always wanted, the feeling she’s sought out her entire life. Pure contentment.

One of his hands goes to her breast as his lips start to move lower, down to her other breast. He unfastens a few more buttons to give him better access.

“How do you taste like cinnamon,” he murmurs, licking the top of her breast.

She closes one eye in thought. “Did eat a cinnamon roll earlier. But not off my _chest_.”

His hand kneads her other breast so slowly that the tantalizing rhythm of it is starting to make her dizzy.

“Taste like cinnamon and…” He moves lower. “Coriander.”

She makes a face. “…Oddly specific.”

He stops kissing her for a moment and just breathes, forehead resting between her breasts. He keeps his hand on her breast but ceases his ministrations. She kisses the top of his head.

“Thought about you all day today, you know,” he says quietly. “At work. All I could think about was your skin.”

“Really?” She grins into his hair. “I was just a few feet away.”

“Sometimes I’m dizzy thinkin’ about you.”

“Aw,” she exhales, kissing his hairline, his temple. “My sweet love.”

He begins pressing his lips to her chest again, kneading her breast. “Love it when you say that.”

She kisses his ear. “Love it when you say things to _make_ me say it.”

He sucks at her breast through her bra. “Can we go upstairs please.”

Just as he gets the request out, Daisy comes bounding down the stairs, stopping short at the bottom of it and covering her eyes.

“Oi! Bloody hell,” Daisy exclaims. “Why do you two always act like there’s no one else home?”

Alec lifts his head, hair all mussed up. “When you start payin’ rent, you can lodge a formal complaint with management.”

Daisy moves her hand away so he can see her roll her eyes. “Need more packin’ tape.”

“On the counter, love,” Ellie says. 

Daisy exits into the kitchen. When she walks past again with the tape, she says, “My room’s almost packed, if anyone cares.” Then jogs up the stairs.

They are not far behind Daisy themselves. Safe from the prying eyes of ever-present children in their bedroom, Alec strips Ellie of her clothing. Though she’s normally too impatient to let him undress her on his own, she stands happily next to the bed and lets him take his time with it. She avoids accidental glances over at the mirror, still not quite ready to accept all the ways in which her body has changed and continues to. He guides her to sit back on the bed, then drops to his knees. Positioning her legs over his shoulder, he moves in brings his mouth to her. 

They’ve been doing a lot of this in recent weeks – not that they did _little_ of it before – and he suspects it will continue. It’s just _easier_, frankly, to get each other off with mouths and hands, without the interloper between them. And he likes that he can focus solely on her, can take care of her and make her feel good. He often feels helpless when it comes to her pregnancy. There’s only so much he can do to help meet her needs and share in the process. He figures the absolute least he can do is give her as many orgasms as possible before she gives birth and then renders certain lady parts off-limits for a while. 

He makes her come twice in a row. These days she often doesn’t have the stamina for it, though he certainly does. But tonight he has decided to be relentless, and even as she’s shaking from her first orgasm, keeps up the good work until she has a second.

Then he helps her get settled on the bed properly and lies beside her.

Ellie glances down at his very tight trousers. 

“Want me to do you now?”

He shakes his head, eyes on her breasts, as he unfastens his own trousers. “_I’ll_ do me.” He jumps out of bed and takes them off, suddenly in a great rush. “You lie just like that.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “What, like bloody Rose on the bloody Titanic?”

He lies back down on the bed, naked now from the waist down. He guides her backward, placing one of her hands between her legs and the other on one of her breasts.

“Want you to be my _muse_.”

She raises an eyebrow. “You want me to be your _pornography_.”

He moves to lie on his side next to her, palming himself. “Muse. Goddess.”

“Porn star. Pin up.”

He curls his hand around his own hard cock and begins sliding it up and down. “Just let me look at you.”

She stays as he has arranged her, eyes falling to watch the way he touches himself. They’ve never done this before, not really. He’s always too eager to touch her, and she has a hard time staying still as a rule. His eyes scan her body hungrily as he gets himself off, stopping in various spots, moving from her face to her breasts to her stomach to the hand between her legs.

“You find this sexy?” She moves one of her hands to her stomach. “My – “

“Put it back,” he demands, panting. She does. “Yes.” He’s got _both _hands employed in the task now. “Open your legs.”

“Uh.”

“Just do it.”

She parts her legs, keeping her hand where it is.

“_Fuck. _Fuck, _Ellie_.” 

She blinks. “Yes. What? I’m not doing anything.” She gets bored and lies her head back, staring at the ceiling. Her mind wanders and she starts thinking about what she could do to at least be _good _pornography. But she’s honestly not sure. Most of the things she does to be sexy are things she does _to_ him, or _with_ him. She could make a noise, she thinks. Moan or something. But that feels too artificial. 

Fortunately he interrupts her thoughts. “I’m gonna come.”

_Oh I wish you would_, she thinks.

He cries out her name as he finishes, which gives her a bit of pause considering that to her mind she’s done nothing to earn it. It’s much more satisfying to hear his moans and cries when she’s _making him_ moan and cry out. When she’s sure it’s all over, she gets out of bed and goes to clean herself up in the loo, then emerges again, tossing a towel at him so he can do the same. She pulls on her light cotton robe, but doesn’t tie up, then crawls back onto the bed with him. 

He tosses the towel away. “You hated that, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t!” She insists. “Just felt a bit useless is all.”

“Ha.” He lies back against a pillow. “You wouldn’t if you understood how gorgeous you are.”

She lies next to him and they both stare straight ahead, a bit dazed. Her in her open robe, him in his wrinkled dress shirt.

“Like a proper shag in here before we go,” Alec says. “Maybe in the mornin’ before everyone gets here.”

Ellie nods agreeably but skeptically. “If you can wake me.” 

He kisses her cheek. “Gonna go have a shower, I think.” 

Inching toward the edge of the bed, he hops up. 

“Alec.”

He throws their clothes in the hamper on his way to the loo. “Yeah.”

“I get dizzy sometimes too, thinking of you.”

He flashes her an impossibly winning grin, then continues on his way.

*


	5. Saturday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for putting up with five chapters of nothing.

In the course of a single Saturday, nearly everyone they know in Broadchurch has come by the house. Some stay for an hour, some for more, a few for the entire day. They have limited time to pack and the plan is to move into the new house on Sunday, before the next work week begins. This is one of the rare times Alec Hardy actually enjoys being a resident of a small town, a part of a community. He knows nearly everyone is coming for Ellie’s sake, not his, but they don’t make him feel that way. They love her enough to at least contemplate loving him.

Late in the evening, it’s just Jocelyn and Maggie left. Fred has long since passed out in bed on top of his covers, while Daisy and Tom have retreated to Tom’s room to play video games side by side on their iPads, since all tvs and game systems are currently packed up.

Alec hears Ellie and Maggie laughing in the living room as he pours Jocelyn and himself each another scotch. They’re in the kitchen, carefully wrapping up dishware with newspaper and packing it in boxes. He’s not sure exactly when Jocelyn became a close friend and confidante – he’s not even sure he’d refer to her as such to anyone else – but she’s the only person he really feels in any way comfortable talking openly to, besides Ellie.

Unfortunately, two scotches in, Jocelyn has ceased being helpful in any way. She sits at the kitchen table, leaning back in a leisurely manner, while Alec continues wrapping mugs in paper.

“Not far from ours, is it? Your new abode.”

“Fairly close, I think,” Alec replies.

There’s a brief silence, as Jocelyn drinks her scotch and then smiles into the glass. “Do you ever think about who you were a year ago and _shudder_.”

Alec looks up. He smirks. “Sometimes, yeah.”

“You’re a different person, Alec.” She smirks right back.

“Not a different person.” He places a mug into a box. “Just have a different life.”

“Never saw yourself sticking around Broadchurch full time, did you?”

Alec looks down and scratches behind his ear. “Dunno.” He shrugs. “Only if Ellie would have me.”

“Lucky for you, she has,” Jocelyn says. “Anyway either you’ve found yourself a new lawyer or you still need to update your will.”

Alec stops what he’s doing. “Right. I do.”

“Come by once you get settled in the new house and we’ll get you squared away.” She takes a sip. “I assume everything goes to Ellie now.”

“Yeah.”

“And I assume you’re going to name the baby Jocelyn.” She offers him a playful smile.

He nods. “Yeah, got it in one.”

Maggie appears in the doorway. “She’s passed out.”

Jocelyn grins with amusement and glances over at Alec. “She does that,” he says with a laugh. “Her and Fred both. They could each drop off at any minute.”

Jocelyn looks at Maggie. “They’re going to name the baby Jocelyn.”

“Ah, okay.” Maggie nods, as if this makes perfect sense. “Jocelyn Margaret, I presume.”

“Pour you one, Maggie?” Alec offers.

Maggie shakes her head. “One of us has to drive home.”

“_One_ of us can’t drive anyway,” Jocelyn points out.

“Designated driver by default, me,” Maggie says.

She takes a single sip from Jocelyn’s glass, then sits down at the table across from Jocelyn. Alec continues wrapping dishware. 

“Ellie seems a bit apprehensive,” Maggie mentions after a moment.

Alec raises an eyebrow at her. “Apprehensive how?”

“Bit overwhelmed, maybe better said.”

“Well, it’s a lot at once,” Jocelyn points out.

“About the baby,” Maggie clarifies. “And her stamina.”

Alec is frowning. He has put the mug down. “How do you mean.”

“Well, getting by on no sleep is difficult when you’re twenty-five, but when you’re almost _forty-four_…and with three _other_ children…”

“Not like she’ll be doin’ it on her own,” Alec replies. “Did she actually say this to you?”

“In so many words. Have you talked about how you’re going to manage it?”

“I…” He falters. “No.”

“There you are then.”

“All right.” Jocelyn looks over at Maggie. “Best be getting on.”

After Jocelyn and Maggie are properly thanked for their help and seen to the door, Alec finds Ellie in the living room, asleep on the couch. She’s lying on her side, one arm draped over her stomach, the other underneath her head. He creeps over to her and sits on the edge of the coffee table before her.

“El.” He smoothes her hair out of her face. “Wake up, love. You’ll be in pain tomorrow if I let you sleep here.”

Her eyes flutter open and she’s groaning until she sees him, then she smiles. “Is it all over? Are we moved in?”

He chuckles. “Not yet. And if you think I’m gonna let you sleep through it, you’re daft.”

Ellie yawns and he trails his fingers up and down her arm soothingly. She tries to sit up but it’s too difficult. She sighs heavily as he helps her into a seated position, then he sits on the couch next to her. Immediately she lies down again, like she’s being weighed down by an anchor, and rests her head on his lap. He chuckles.

“The hard part is over,” Alec assures her. He begins massaging her lower back. He knows well now where the pain is, before she even has to tell him. “Tomorrow the removers will arrive bright and early, then all we have to do is bark out orders.”

“But then we have to _un_pack,” she replies glumly.

“The unpackin’ is a the fun part. Decidin' where everythin’ goes. Arrangin’ the rooms to our likin’. You’ll love that.”

She grunts.

“We get to arrange everythin’ as a family,” he reminds her. “Make every decision together. The house is _ours_.”

She smiles, though he can’t see it.

“We’ll order a massive load of takeaway and just have a go at it.” He starts stroking her hair with his other hand. “And then fall asleep in our brand new bedroom with_out_ a dropped ceiling.”

She nods against his leg. His hand moves slowly up her spine underneath her shirt, taking time to massage each vertabrae.

“Baby’s room will be empty though,” she says quietly, then yawns again.

He looks straight ahead as the same realization dawns on him. “…We have to buy baby things.”

She snorts and it makes him smile. “What the baby shower is for. And I’ll see if Beth still has any of Fred’s hand-me-downs I gave her for Lizzie.”

Alec continues staring straight head. “…We have to buy baby things,” he repeats.

Ellie rolls onto her back so she can look up at him. “What’s your problem?”

“We…have to go to a baby store and buy baby things.”

She blinks at him. “_Yes_…”

“There’s goin’ to be a _baby_.”

“Oh for god’s sake.” She slaps his cheek lightly. “Snap out of it.”

A mischievous grin spreads across his face.

She grimaces at him. “Oh sod off, you’re takin’ the piss out of me.” She turns back onto her side and looks away from him.

He chuckles and keeps rubbing her back. “What color should we paint her room?”

Ellie gets a warm fuzzy feeling just at the idea of it. “Thinking maybe a seafoam green. Or a mint green, whatever it is. Don’t want to be too gender normative.”

“Good,” he replies. “I hate pink.”

He runs his hands up and down the side of her body, from her hips to her underarm and back again.

“You know you’re not on your own, right?” Alec questions suddenly. “El?”

“Bloody well better not be,” she retorts.

He breezes past her sarcasm. “I’ll be around the first couple weeks, all the time. And once I go back to work…you know, half days when I need them. I can be flexible. Perks of bein’ the boss.”

He feels her exhale. “You know as well as I that the job isn’t that predictable. You won’t have a ton of control over your schedule a lot of days.”

“Well. That’s true,” he admits. “But the days I _do_, I’ll be with you as much as possible. And the days I don’t, I’ll take the night shift to make up for it. All right?”

“Kay.”

He begins tracing circles on her stomach, wishing there was a surefire way to wake the baby up. He hasn’t felt her all day.

“If it starts to feel like too much, you tell me,” Alec continues. “I mean that. You tell me and we’ll get help. You shouldn’t feel chained to the house. There’s loads of people in this town who would come runnin’ for the chance to babysit. And the kids can pick up more tasks around the house. Laundry and all that.”

The baby kicks. Alec grins. “There she is.”

Ellie turns onto her back again to look at him. She can always tell when he’s grinning and she never wants to miss it.

“She’s been doing somersaults all day, you just haven’t felt it,” she says. “She’s going to be a right piece of work I reckon.”

“Aye,” Alec agrees. “Like her mother.” 

She pulls a face at him, then says, “I had a dream you were at work, sitting at your desk, holding her to your chest. That was it, nothing else. It was lovely.”

He smiles down at her, rubbing her stomach, hand underneath her top.

“It’s going to be so weird, isn’t it?” She crinkles up her nose. “A baby that’s a bit me and a bit you.”

“That’s how babies _work_.”

“Oh, _please_.” Ellie rolls her eyes. “Tell me more about how babies work.”

The baby kicks.

“She does a lovely job of punctuating my dry wit,” she says.

“It’s the baby version of ‘here, here!’”

She smiles vaguely up at him and touches his cheek. “I’m going to be grumpy tomorrow.”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry about that. In advance.”

“You are forgiven. In advance,” he replies.

She tries to sit up and he helps her into an upright position. She leans against him, her head on his shoulder. He takes her hand, his thumb stroking hers.

“Fred was nearly born here, you know.”

He glances down with slightly widened eyes. “Really?”

“Mm-hmm. Joe nearly had to deliver him himself. Poor Tom was terrified,” she explains. “Ambulance arrived just in time. But it was too late for an epidural.”

Alec is now deeply concerned. This sounds awful for all involved and he would not like a repeat performance. “What about with Tom?”

“Oh, with Tom I was in labor for sixteen hours. I took all the bloody drugs they offered me,” Ellie replies.

Alec hasn’t thought much about her impending labor. But with the images now presented to him he’s suddenly terrified. Ellie, however, has already moved on.

“Tom broke his arm climbing the tree in the garden when he was seven,” she says. “When Fred first started crawling he made it all the way up to the sixth step there before anyone noticed.” She gestures to the staircase. “This window here has been replaced three times due to boys playing football in the house when they were expressly told not to. Once after a terrible day I slammed the kitchen cupboard door so hard it fell clean off. Fred was sitting right here on this couch the first time he said ‘Mummy.’”

He kisses the top of her head. “We’ll have all those things and more in the new house. Only we won’t have to push out memories of a certain someone.”

Ellie nods somberly. “Yeah.”

Daisy and Tom come barrelling down the stairs suddenly, shoving at each other like proper siblings.

“MUM!” “DAD!” They’re both holding their iPads.

“Shh, shh, Fred is sleeping,” Ellie chides them.

“My iPad’s dead,” Daisy says.

“Mine too,” Tom adds. “We can’t find our chargers.”

Alec shrugs. “Probably packed ‘em.”

“Do you have yours?” Daisy asks frantically.

“Can’t remember the last time I _used_ mine,” Alec replies, scratching his head.

He glances at Ellie.

“Think mine’s packed as well,” she says.

Daisy and Tom both let out highly melodramatic groans of frustration.

“Don’t you go messin’ about with those boxes now,” Alec warns them. “Everything is perfectly packed to within an inch of its life and I’ll have the head of anyone who disturbs them.”

The two teenagers both stalk unhappily back upstairs. 

Ellie turns to Alec, complete with pouty face. “Why’ve we signed on for eighteen extra years of this?”

The baby kicks.

“Oof,” Ellie exhales, eyes wide. “I’ve offended her.”

He lays a protective hand flat on her stomach, then turns into her and starts kissing her neck. She smiles at the sensation. “In eighteen years you’ll have tired of this.”

“Nope,” he murmurs. Then he looks up. “As long as you keep blushin’ like that, I’ll keep wantin’ to _make _you blush.” He kisses her cheek. “To bed? You’re exhausted.”

“Just me?” She rolls her eyes. “Why can you never admit to being tired?”

“’Cause I’m never tired.”

“You’re always tired!”

He stands and offers a hand to help her up. “Yes, but I get second winds and third winds. You just get tireder and tireder.”

“To be fair, I’ve been pregnant for 75% of our relationship,” she reminds him.

His eyes narrow. “What a frightening statistic.”

“I know.”

In bed, Ellie lies with her back to him and he cozies up to her, arm lodged between her between and the swell of her stomach. He slips a leg between hers and rubs their feet together for warmth.

“Last night in the attic,” she says with a yawn.

“Mm.” He kisses behind her ear. “I’ll sleep quite well with_ that_ knowledge.”

“Good. Enjoy sleep while you can.”

***


End file.
